Where You'll Find Me
by blueheronz
Summary: This House & Cameron romance is set at the conclusion of the S3 episode, Informed Consent. Although it begins with dark humor & angst, it soon turns to lighthearted & fun romance. Thoroughly House & Cameron. Beta honors go to ColorOfAngels.
1. He is Risen

**Disclaimer: **Like it or not, _House m.d._ and its characters belong to powers greater than me: the Fox Network & David Shore.

**A/N: **Although you can't tell from the first two chapters, this is a fairly light-hearted babyfic that happens to be set as a post-ep to "Informed Consent." I wrote this for katej, who designed my LJ page for me. Please come visit and check out her beautiful & insightful artistry. She is also responsible for the icon/avatar on my profile page at Fan Fiction.

**Betas: **Thanks to the always awesome **ColorofAngels** for editing. Her beta skills are equal to her amazing abilities as a writer.

**My LJ: **is now open to the public, if you care to read my Fan Fiction there. Find it under my username.**  
**

**This story: **is rated M because it contains sex, sacrilege, and frank language. There are spoilers through S3, "Informed Consent."

**Dedication: **_For katej, for "all the etc."_

**Feedback & Reviewing: **I appreciate feedback on my writing, so if you read it and thought, "Me Likee," well, there's a wee blue button at the bottom of the page. Click on it like you mean it, and then please take the 30-odd seconds to let me know. Thanks for reading.

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House dreamed he was dead. 

If Wilson knew of it, he'd want to know _why_, whipping out a handy dandy copy of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams for a look-see. House himself couldn't say from whence the dream had come and wasn't sure he could procure a definitive answer, and yet his restless mind produced theories in spades.

Perhaps it was a result of the ethical mumbo jumbo that Ezra Powell's case had stirred up in the Diagnostics department. The renowned medical researcher was determined to die, doggone it, and he gosh-darn wanted their help in so doing. Debate had ensued regarding if or when it was okay to help a patient end his life.

The score?

Foreman against.

Chase for.

Cameron conflicted.

House, when said patient was terminal, but not before.

It might have been from watching Cameron try to come to terms with what she thought was right, and wondering whether she could live with the consequences of acting on her convictions. When House had left the hospital around midnight, Cameron was almost as pale as Powell himself, and considering Powell was on his deathbed, that was saying something. She had stabbed House with her eyes, and he'd backed away from the locker room leaving her to duel with her demons.

Or it could have been because of House's conversations with Powell, his own description of dying as slow, painful, and torturous. Where you struggled for every breath, and afterwards, found nothing but the nothing that is.

Exploring the origin of the dream would have fascinated Cameron too, House supposed. But personally, he was disinclined to analyze it, although the part about Cameron had him standing at attention in more ways than one.

It was what it was:

He dreamed he was dead.

From a distance he looked down on his funeral and appraised his grizzled mug and lean frame in its satin-lined box. Yuck. The bronze exterior of the casket did nothing for his complexion. Waxy? Well, yes, but his visage was unmarked. He'd seen worse. For a corpse, he looked pretty good. But what the hell was he doing in a coffin? Apparently, Wilson had failed to honor his request to be cremated privately and without ceremony. Trust Wilson to fuck it up. At least they hadn't shaved him, the makeup was minimal, and he would return to the earth dressed in his favorite shirt, the Stones tee that Cameron had given him. On the front was the familiar insignia: a pair of scarlet lips with a tongue protruding and above it the words _you can't always get what you want. _Maybe the next time he died he'd make Cameron his medical proxy and executor of his will, such as it was – it wasn't like he had children on whom he could bequeath all his cool stuff.

Stacy hadn't wanted kids.

His view expanded to reveal groups of mourners standing in clumps near his parents, who huddled together with stooped shoulders, as if sharing an umbrella in a spot of cold rain. Seeing his father? _That _made the dream a bona fide nightmare.

Hovering near the people responsible for bringing him into the world stood Wilson, head bent to hear something House's mother was saying. With an arm in a sling and a bruise clouding the left side of his sensitive face Wilson looked like he should be the one headed for permanent foreclosure. At least it looked that way to House, who detected the remnants of tears beneath his friend's expressive brown eyes. Why was Wilson's countenance a mess when all House's lifeless face needed was a shave?

House looked for clues that might explain how he'd died, but a glimpse of Stacy distracted him. Her angular looks were softened only in that while she wore her perpetual black power suit, she had paired the tailored jacket with an A-line skirt instead of the usual dress slacks. Thin lips pursed and features pinched into an I-need-coffee-to-get-through-this mask, Stacy leaned on Mark, and Mark leaned on (yes) a cane. The irony bounced about like an Energizer bunny. So she had finally learned to stand by her man. _She was so last season_, he thought, cattily.

To the right of the matrimonially bound twosome, was the striking form of Lisa Cuddy. Instinctively, House looked for the nearest exit, and then laughed. Not much she could do to him now. Foreman and Chase flanked her as if they were her bodyguards. For once, she looked demure. Her cleavage was tamed beneath a modest navy sheath – in fact, he could barely see the hollow of her throat. Hmm. Did that indicate guilt? And Chase? How predictable. Mr. Hairspray wept silently for his boss like a dog mourning the loss of its abusive master. Foreman averted his eyes from the open coffin, no doubt to avoid imagining himself in House's place. _Don't want to end up like you_. House could just hear him saying it. House itched to make a face at the three of them. Couldn't. Death sucked. Still, when it came to looking pathetic, he had only to observe the three of them to know he had competition in that department.

All of the mourners hung back except for one slight figure that stood vigil at his coffin, dark hair spilling around her pale face, her small white hand grasping his presumably cold, stiff one.

Allison Cameron. And she wasn't wearing black. Apparently, Cameron had come as is, dressed in her normal workday garb of a mulberry hued blouse with short puffy sleeves and form fitting low rise trousers that reminded anyone with a pulse (and some without one) that she was purely feminine.

_I could have hit that. _

His spirit flew back into his body as Cameron brushed her thumb over his knuckles and spoke quietly into his hitherto lifeless ear.

"So this is how you get out of a date?" At first, she's incredulous, and then fun creeps into her voice. "A little dramatic, don't you think?" When he remains still, her voice quavers. "I lied, House," she says and he has to work to breathe shallowly so she won't notice that he's not really dead. He wants to hear this. "I never stopped liking you … loving you," she amended. "I _never_ hated you. I _never_ got over you. _That never happened_."

Apparently, he was wanted, dead or alive.

It was not beyond him to fake being dead. (His capacity for deceit continued to surprise even him.) But, House knew that it was Cameron – her voice, her touch – that brought him back to life. _He is risen. He is risen indeed. _

Propping himself up on his elbows in the casket, he grabbed her by the waist and dragged her down on top of him as she gasped first in confusion, then in anger, and finally with desire as his mouth coaxed hers into submission, his tongue parting her lips and seeking her warmth. _He was so cold._

Between kisses, he kept repeating, "It's not a trick. Cameron, this is not a trick."

And then the box o' death turns into a bed, the mourners disappear, and what's left is House, red-blooded and fully erect, and Cameron, straddling him, his cock in her hand until she's got it right at her entrance and why waste time? She lowers herself down excruciatingly slowly over his pulsing, venous prick, pushing her pelvis against him so he feels her soft bush. Ah, friction. Tossing her hair back, it slips down across her face once more. She begins to unbutton her blouse, while looking down at him.

"Let me. Do that." House grasps her wrists, moves them away as he rips the flimsy material so buttons fly, followed by the remnants of her blouse: her pink nipples poke impatiently at the lace of her purple bra. Deftly unhooking and flinging the bra aside, House feels his cock twitch as his eyes fix at the swell of her high, firm breasts.

"You grow inside me," she says cryptically from above him as his tongue teases her hardened peaks, sucks one into his warm mouth, nudging the nipple as his tongue twirls around it. His hands span her waist as she rocks him, and he feels her open up and take every inch of him. When he thinks he's as far inside her as he can be there's a reservoir. _More for him. _She gushes, flooding his erection with hot wetness and – fuck – where did you _learn_ that? Who taught you how to _do_ that … to me?

And the music. Soundtrack to their sex: Must be Cameron's pick: Jerry Harrison's "A Perfect Lie." Ahem. No double entendre there, he thinks as the lyrics clear his receptors:

_You made your move  
What you do to me  
I know you know what you're doing  
And I'm taken by a perfect lie  
Who taught you how to do that?  
(Where did you learn that?)_

House wakes, rock hard, heart pounding, leg aching, and very much alive. He considers jerking off – _fuck_ Cameron. He wants her even when she drives him to distraction. Like she's been doing throughout this whole Powell debacle, dressed in black, a bit prematurely, he thought – Powell may look like a corpse, but he isn't dead yet. House wants her nevertheless. Wants her when she asks him about his leg, the pain. None of his antics scare her away. Wants her when she hates him. She has. She will again. And when he yells at her, he still wants her. When she wants him, he wants her back.

It's just that distance is best, right?

Why does he care? How can he not care? She makes it impossible to remain apathetic. It's like that Elvis song: _I forgot to remember to forget you. _ Insipid in a country music kind of yuh huh way, but he can relate.

His prick will have to wait. Glancing at his watch, he sees it's time to get to PPTH to check on Ezra Powell, see how he coped with his terminal diagnosis. _And what I want to know is how do you like your blue-eyed boy Mr. Death?_

Cuddy finds him in his office, and delivers the news that half an hour after being declared _stable_, at 2:30 a.m., Powell passed away. House keeps his cool, leaving Cuddy suspicious only of him. But as soon as she leaves, he's flooded with thoughts. Sometimes Cameron makes his head spin; never mind what she does to his cock.

From the start she'd stymied him. She thought that House found her easy to read and predictable, but just when he had a bead on her, she'd do something to surprise him. Like _enjoy_ a monster truck rally. Resign her position to make his life easier – hers, too, if he was fair. Ask him out on a date – not for more money or a loftier title, just a single date … dinner. With _him_. Stealing ecstasy from a patient, taking the drug, and mounting Chase? He hadn't seen that one coming, but she'd done it. And to think she'd go for a foot massage from Johnny Damon. He thought she hated sports. Maybe she just hated sports metaphors. After all, she had a brother …

And then there was her behavior while they tried to diagnose that stubborn bastard Powell _on deadline_ so the old coot could hurry up and die. (He'd never met a guy so determined to skip out on the land of the living, not even John Henry Giles when he thought he had ALS.) One moment she was tossing off a sarcastic quip about staying up all night having wild sex and doing Jell-O shots – while a man's life hung in the balance. Next she spewed forth about the right to die in a dignified fashion – as if death was ever dignified – and then she'd run away from the moral dilemma, chilling in the locker room like a benched athlete.

Now Powell was dead.

_Wasn't me. _Nope. For once someone else had decided what was right and had grown up enough to act on her beliefs. Good for her, House thought. _Hard for her_. Could she live with it? He needed to see, to know. If Cameron was crying, he was a goner. The time he'd caught her weeping in the lab, he'd nearly taken her from behind. He'd wanted to encircle her in his arms – white coat, reading glasses and all – and never let go.

Gripping his cane and lowering his chin, eyes gazing past the glass panes of his office, he hobbled off as fast as his handicap allowed him.

House knew just where to find her.

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**A/N: Want more? Or should I bag it? If not, why not? If you tell me what you liked, you'll probably get more of it!**


	2. And The Two Shall Become One

**Disclaimer: **Story's mine. Characters belong to the muckity mucks at Fox.

**Betas: **Notes are still coming in from a few of my betas, but thanks to Kymba and Timbereads for insights and editorial comments.

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Because of her a man was dead.

There was no escaping that fact, not even in the shadowed quiet of the hospital's chapel. It was an unlikely spot for an atheist like Cameron to meditate on her actions after injecting a lethal dose of morphine into Ezra Powell. He had been, at first, so likeable. Trust House to ruin it for her by mentioning the researcher's articles from the '60s. The wizened old man who had at first appeared kindly and benevolent had been transformed to Nazi status in her eyes before morphing back to merely pathetic. The experiments he'd conducted on babies had caused countless cases of cancer. It reminded her of an episode of The X-Files. But finally, Powell was human, he was her patient, and he was in pain.

Hands clasped in her lap, Cameron sat allowing her thoughts and feelings to free-flow. Hardwood pews offered little support for her back or comfort for her ass. Morning light crept through the filter of stained glass, casting her in purple, blue, and red so her small black-clad frame was color-saturated. Behind her a candle flickered, lit for the dead.

She wasn't running away from the consequences of her choice to help a man end his life – she doubted if anyone but House would guess she'd done it – but she had picked the last place on earth House would search for her: a house of God.

In the place where the hopeless hoped and the godless resorted to prayer, she reviewed the rationale that framed her decision to break the Hippocratic oath. She had done it because it was the right thing to do, not because House thought it ethical. Not because it was what he would do for a patient. Not to pass some sort of test House had set up on her behalf. There had been no such test. It wasn't even that Ezra Powell had baited her. Cameron filled the syringe and emptied it into his bloodstream because oddly enough, ending his life was the only way she could live with herself.

Like it or not, sometimes a part of being alive was the right to choose death. She had seen mothers willing to die so their babies could live. Soldiers and heroes threw themselves in front of bullets for the sake of their comrades and third world fathers starved so their children could eat a morsel of bread. And while she didn't equate Powell's choice with bravery, she admired him for taking a stand. She respected him for humbling himself enough to ask for the help he would need to desist.

She had been there at the end when her husband's breath gave out and his heartbeat faded away, had witnessed the relative peace with which he'd passed, and had even thought that with the drugs to ease his pain, it was just a matter of letting go. Perhaps, she reasoned, circumstances existed wherein death might look like hope, and that a person such as Powell, old and aware of the tenuous state of his existence, might not want to wait for nature to take its course. Perhaps the concept of nothingness would seem like an attractive alternative to a state of being that involved constant pain and drugged oblivion.

This line of reasoning led her to think about the parallels between Powell and House. What separated the two of them was age, of course, and the fact that House was willing to live with the pain. If drugs could blot out the hurt and get him through the day, he'd pop them from now to the hereafter. But, House might be drugged, but he wasn't oblivious.

What if House ever got to the point where his pain was too much to bear? If at an old age, he found he had suffered enough? Somehow she pictured herself by his side until, as 'they' said, the end of time. From the way House described it, natural death was an arduous business. And by nature she was helpful.

She'd been death's little helper on behalf of Ezra Powell; at least that's how she imagined House would put it.

It was the right choice for him, and the right choice for her.

And yet she cried.

Her tears weren't for Powell, who had chosen his own fate. They weren't for John, her dead husband. Where he was concerned, she'd run dry. It was crossing the line that grieved her. She could never go back to the other side of the shore where she'd left her innocence. Recently she'd told House that ignorance was bliss. Although she'd meant the words as a blow, as if to say _you don't know what you're missing_, she'd also believed them. Killing a man, even if the death dealt was mercifully executed, resided in the realm of doing what was once unthinkable, particularly when you relied on knowledge you'd accumulated in order to preserve and prolong life. It was a rite of passage like getting your period, losing your virginity, marrying, and having a baby, Cameron thought. Once it happened, you could hardly look back. What had Wilson told her when she'd confessed that she'd almost had an affair with Joe?

After confessing his marital infidelities, Wilson had said, "You'd be surprised what you can live with."

Of course he was right.

And when she'd seen the relief, the gratitude in Powell's eyes as she'd leaned over his hospital bed, breathing in the familiar scent of disease rotting a person from the inside out, she'd squeezed his hand. His face would be etched in her memory indelibly like a tattoo.

Cameron felt the sterile air from the hospital hallway breeze through the place of worship. Swiveling in her seat, she glimpsed House, silhouetted in the doorway, leaning on his cane. He hesitated, chin lowered, gaze leveled at her before limping over.

Admit it to yourself, she thought, her hands clenching around the edge of the pew. You wanted him to come. Knew he'd employ reverse logic, looking for you first in the place you'd be least likely to seek refuge.

Still, House was the last person she'd expect to track her down, wipe away her tears, and hold her shaking frame firmly against his strong body until she quieted.

At first he'd simply stood next to her, the warmth of his hand soaking into her shoulder as she wept. (His presence exuded such power; she was hyperaware of the effect his touch had on her body, the places where his hand _could_ be, if only.) He had offered her silent solidarity – no more, no less. His physical presence alone affirmed her choice to euthanize Powell, Cameron knew. And then he uttered the words she'd never thought he'd say. "I'm proud of you."

He gave her shoulder a final squeeze and moved past the flickering candles toward the doorway. Cameron thought he was leaving, no doubt to consult his magic eight ball or practice juggling random objects or seek out the distraction of his Game Boy. But she heard his footsteps and the thump of his cane stop. His face was shadowed, but Cameron could imagine the muscles working, his eyes narrowing as he pulled on his scruff.

She turned to look, and there he was, poised, facing her. Cameron saw something cross his features, as he seemed to come to a private, irrevocable decision. With a studied, unhurried air, House closed the door behind him and barred it with his cane. Using the pews as crutches, he returned to her.

"Move, Dr. Death," he demanded, gesturing for her to scoot over and to hurry up about it. And then he sat, elbows resting on thighs, chin in hand: the pose of a thinker.

As if to soften the words, House turned to look at her, closely examining her face, and noting dark stains beneath her eyes. What color were they, anyway? He'd had a few years to solve that puzzle and so far he had failed. A mercurial shade that depended on outside circumstance to solidify into green or gray, a color that made words of description like "green" or "gray" seem to say the least inadequate.

Another tear fell from the pool welling under her lids, and House sighed theatrically. "Only _you_ could make me do this," he announced with annoyance into the quiet, and House drew her to him, closing his arms round her back. He smoothed her hair and held her head against his chest so she could feel his heartbeat.

Its rate was accelerated.

Maybe she was hallucinating from exhaustion. Perhaps she'd inadvertently injected herself with the morphine. For House to hold her, to touch her, to touch _anyone_ by choice was … craziness. This was the man who never returned a hug, but instead let his arms dangle by his sides when someone tried to embrace him. He wouldn't even hug the little girl with brain cancer and she'd charmed Chase into a _kiss_. House was the antithesis of a teddy bear.

"You're a … believer. Good for you." House interrupted her when Cameron began to protest. "Not in _God_. I know. You dismiss the great I-Am as a myth, but you believe that life has meaning. It's easy to have convictions. Hard to act on 'em."

_Hard to think straight with Cameron's breasts pressing against me. Harder to be a hard-hearted bastard while holding her close.__Easy to grow hard where it counts. _

"I don't regret it," Cameron heard herself say as if from a distance. The sleep deprivation was making her head fuzzy. House's body was the home she'd always wanted. Closing her eyes, she breathed in his odor: clean and masculine, like scent-free soap. If she didn't know better she would swear that his pheromones carried an identifiable scent, and although she couldn't name it, it swarmed her senses. Cameron's tears had ceased and her breathing had returned to normal, except that finding herself held by Gregory House had the odd effect of making her feel like she was naked, and her nerve endings were on alert.

"No reason to. You did what you believed to be right." House pulled his arm away, reached into his jeans pocket and drew out a tiny rectangle of paper. He peered at it in the dim light, and then spoke. "I had Chinese for lunch today, on Wilson. This was my fortune. 'For a good cause, wrongdoing may be virtuous.' Think it fits." House folded it in half and gave it to her.

"What I did? It's not about virtue or goodness. This is about what you can live with," replied Cameron, looking at his beautiful hand with its long fingers, wishing he'd shed his jacket and button down so she could see his forearms with that one vein that bulged and his biceps when they flexed. She exhaled. "Sometimes I think it would be easier to believe in a benevolent being that created the universe, a master and commander who never doubted his actions, and knew he was always right."

House gave her a sideways glance. "Think you're covered in that department. Sonny and Cher said it best. 'You've got _me_, babe.'"

She was staring out into the chapel, her eyes resting on the figures rendered in stained glass. Some people regarded these apostles as saints. To her they were strangers. From the little she knew of them, they'd managed to irk Jesus, and that was saying something.

House continued to talk despite Cameron's pensive demeanor. "If memories of my college ethics course hold, I think Aristotle asserted something like this: every action and choice of action is thought to have some good as its object. Think Powell would agree. You don't regret what you did. But … you have regrets." House stated this as fact, while his mind went to work on another question. He had touched her, held her. Did he have a right to do it again? His fingers itched to toy with her ponytail.

Cameron inhaled, and blew the air out in a whoosh. "My regrets aren't about the things I've done in my life. I regret the things I didn't do."

"Such as?" House's fingers settled for rapping on the edge of the pew in front of them in a syncopated rhythm.

Such as not having the affair with Joe when she'd had the chance. Never mind it would have been unforgivable. After all, Cameron didn't believe in a God of redemption or a God of damnation. She didn't regret bringing House her letter of resignation after Vogler had threatened him, but when House had appeared at her door, trying to entice her back to Princeton Plainsboro, she'd settled for the promise of a dinner date, while leaving him standing outside of her place. She regretted not yanking House into her apartment, into her arms, and into her bed. Or the floor would have sufficed. Whatever. And when he'd invited her for drinks and food a few weeks ago, when it seemed the ketomine was working, she'd refused, flustered and taken aback. 'Regret' wasn't an adequate word for how she felt about that. Every time fear held her back from embracing life, she regretted it.

"If I tell you, you'll solve me like a Will Shortz crossword, and then you'll go back to work." Gazing into his eyes, she made it clear that she would _regret_ it if he took that route.

"Oh, _come on_. When have I actively sought out a hard day's work?" House pulled a tone of exasperation out of his repertoire and polished it, answering her look with one of his own.

"Work is code for watching your soap," she said softly, holding the eye contact. "Thought you'd intuit that."

At that remark, he scowled out of habit. And then, without warning, as dust floated though light from stained glass, House stood, pulling her to her feet so he towered over her. His hand reached out and lightly touched her hip as he steadied himself.

House looked nearly austere dressed in jeans, tee, and jacket, and Cameron felt electricity – an undeniable life force – spark from him. _God help them if they ever kissed_, she thought. _There would be a reckoning_.

The light touch of his fingers on her hip branded her, searing the skin beneath her trousers. As a distraction, Cameron fixated on House's throat, and the buttons of his shirt, her fingers itching to undo them, undo him. She remembered all too vividly the sight of his naked chest, with its well-developed pecs, when she'd found him tripping in the locker room, with just a towel wrapped around his manhood. She wanted to sightsee there again, with a more detailed stop to check out his nipples, imagining how her tongue could incite them into hard points of flesh, and she longed for a side trip to admire his abs.

She had felt his heart beat under her ear and seen his face shift, and as they regarded one another, Cameron read his eyes like a favorite book and knew that House had set aside his doubts about the two of them. _Why now_? A few years ago, she would have asked. Now, she didn't care.

_No regrets._

"If I asked you out for dinner right now, you'd say yes," she stated slowly, watching him carefully for reaction.

A quick glance at his watch, and then, "Pretty early in the day for dinner." The corners of his mouth twitched. "But a breakfast burrito would hit the spot. No pickle risk in Mexican."

"What about work?" Like she was in any shape to practice medicine. The last time she'd had quality time with her mattress was a blur to Cameron.

House shrugged. "Last time I checked, I'm the boss. Patient's dead. Not much to do, unless you're into paperwork or clinic duty. You hungry?"

"Not really." Cameron looked down at the floor, taking in House's sneakers. He wore the ones with the red flames emblazoned. She was still aware of his hand resting lightly on her hip, and all she wanted was for House to pull her closer.

"Me neither." House looked at his hand still connected ever so tenuously to her body. It looked like it belonged there. The sight of it stirred him and he was once again aware of the progress his erection had made. _Hard, harder, hardest. _

What had she said about regret?

_I regret the things I didn't do. _

_Me, too. _

Like not taking her hand and ravishing her when she came to the condo to give her notice. Had she ever been more beautiful than she was that night, her face sensual, and yet possessed of a nun-like aspect, her body lovely and lithe, her small hand extended?

Oh, House had regrets.

Like not shutting his mouth the night of their date. Should have followed the advice of Elvis and practiced _a little less conversation, a little more action_. But to his everlasting chagrin, he'd been _himself_ again.

Like when he'd proved that the wife of a patient was poisoning her husband and Cameron came to pay up. He hated himself for not grabbing her, pulling her onto his lap, and taking her. That whole scene had replayed in his memory a score of times. Appearing at his office late that night, she'd handed him crisp bills from the waistband of her trousers along with eyes that contained carnal knowledge and the words, "Innocence is bliss."

_Jesus._

The words were open for interpretation, but the way House read it was that she'd challenged him: _You think what you don't know won't hurt you, that if you don't touch me, kiss me, hold me, fuck me, you'll protect me; you'll protect _you_. Ignorance _is_ bliss, but it's not fun and it's not really living. _

And then their fingers had touched.

_Christ._

It was on par with all the times House had brushed her eyes with his only to feel as if he'd entered her, rubbed his body against hers, and become, oddly, kin.

_And the two shall become one flesh. _

It wasn't a question of _if_ they'd love one another; it was a matter of _when_. He _knew_ how _good_ they would be, _if only_ … Somewhere House had read that those were two of the loneliest words in the English language.

The two of them stood facing each other like a couple of chess players determining who would make the first move. His eyes traveled from her hip to her face, tear marred and peaked. In her eyes he got the message. Received it, over and out.

There was only one thing she wanted.

Him.

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**A/N: **Thanks to all who read & review. It's appreciated. 


	3. Nearer to Thee

**A/N: **Thanks to betas ColorOfAngels, Houseluvr, and Timbereads, who, to be fair, haven't read this updated version, but who nonetheless helped me shape this chapter. 

**Dedication: **This story continues to be dedicated to Katej, for "all the etc."

* * *

Cameron looked up at House beneath heavy lids framed by long lashes. Like the tiny dancer in Elton John's song, she appeared delicate, her dark hair and milky skin a study in contrast.

Regarding her small form dressed in black like the widow she was, House was filled with contradictory wants.

_I, me, mine._

He wanted to pin her against the pew and grind his hard cock into her softness, to shove his knee between her legs and up against her clit, to yank her to him, forcing her mouth open under his and thrusting his tongue inside like a brute from a dime store bodice ripper.

_Want to crush you._

But as House surveyed her tear marked face, noticing the way she wavered on her feet from exhaustion, he just wanted to mold her to him so his warmth could offer her a haven from hurt.

_Won't crush you._

Like it or not – and House was conflicted – Cameron brought out the caveman in him. So slender was she, her frame at times looked fragile beneath the white lab coat. If he scooped her up into his arms, it would be like carrying a child.

The few times he'd seen her cry, and today was no exception, an emotion more potent than pain attacked his heart and spread through his chest like angina.

Those were the times he'd forced himself to school his face and still his body, although he'd found it impossible on those occasions to breathe normally, and he'd squeeze the handle of his cane until his knuckles turned white.

If only he could love her body, kiss her mouth, grow inside her in spirit and in truth, and in so doing, heal her from hurt.

_One love, one blood, one life._

At the base of House's belly, desire curls, spreading downward to fuel his erection.

_How many ways can I ask you to take me, here & now? _

That's what her eyes say.

Afterward, neither is sure who took the first step forward or if they stumbled together into one another's arms.

Cameron touches his face, scruff tickling her sensitive palm. Before he kisses her, House gives her the semi-sad half-smile, light contained in his eyes.

And more.

_You think you know me now. _Now_ you'll know me. _

He leans toward her, lowering his head to her level, arms around her waist, learning its curves. His hands snake down to claim her ass, and he pulls her closer, up where he's so hard it aches.

_Nearer my god to thee, nearer to thee_, the angels sing as they look down on the scene.

It takes forever for their mouths to touch, and as they close in on each other, the colors of their eyes mix together like paint on a palate, until his blue is in her green. Atoms multiply. The ghosts in the chapel hush and the saints pictured in the thick colored glass cover their mouths with their hands, but keep their eyes open. Once his mouth skims hers, it's fated addiction.

"You shouldn't wear black. This isn't a funeral," House admonishes.

His hands skim her ribcage under her shirt as he lifts it over her head, and then he kisses her as if he has a fever and is no longer responsible for his actions. Her mouth is hot, the skin of her back silken, as his hands move restlessly down to her waist and he yanks her hard up against his erection. The sight of her aqua lace bra filled with the swell of her perfect breasts and the tiny freckles sprinkled across her clavicle makes him curse. That and the feel of those breasts pressed against his t-shirt, her stiffened nipples seductively brushing his chest.

His bad leg bumps into a pew.

_Have to remedy that. _

House grabs her hand and leads her to the front of the chapel under the benevolent face of the Virgin Mary, and draws her down onto the carpeting. Rolling onto his good side, he pulls her to him, clasping her small boned frame against the long, lean, length of him.

He feels small hands grip the back of his head, as her kiss deepens and she sucks his tongue inside of her mouth.

_Can't get close enough to him. _

She clings to his body as if ravenous. Next to her ear, his breath is ragged. House rolls onto his back, taking her with him, loving the sensation of blue chapel carpeting underneath him, while Cameron covers him like a blanket.

Her deft tongue darts between his lips, brushing his with a confidence that sends blood crashing toward his prick. He sucks her bottom lip and nips at the soft flesh gently with his teeth. It makes him think of biting off her panties when it comes right down to it.

Before he goes down on her, he wants to see her nakedness, the soft raven curls that cover her mound, to part her with his hands, and then his tongue, and, God help him, to fill her with his cock.

His hands reach for her pants and she grabs his wrists, guiding him as he unzips, tugging at the cloth. Watching her wriggle out of the trousers with a swish of her hips, he caught his first glimpse of transparent blue-green panties and what lies beneath. House burst with the desire to tug off the garment with his teeth and explore her with tongue and mouth – to tease her lips apart …

_But not yet. _

Cameron pushes him back down as her fingers fumble with the buttons of his aubergine shirt. "I'll buy you another," she promises, husky of voice, impatiently grabbing at the cloth and sending buttons flying only God knows where as she feels House's warm hands slide over her bare arms.

She feels cool and silky beneath his roving palms. Tugging at his tee, she burrows underneath it until he feels her mouth kissing a path from waist band up with a quick stop to dip into navel and blow – _fuck, that was_ – but there was no time to think of adjectives as she shoved material out of her way, her tongue circling his hardened nipples hungrily. He lifted his arms so she could slip the shirt up and off him, and as she did her hands traced his biceps, his forearms. She couldn't stop kissing his mouth, sometimes barely skimming his lips, and then crushing his mouth with hers. Fine-boned fingers touched the bulge in his jeans, studying its shape, length, and heft.

_Holy … In the name of all that is … holy. He's big and hard for me._

She leans over him, spilling into his eyes.

"I thought you'd become immune to me," she mused as he pulls off the band holding her ponytail in place and her hair falls across his face.

"Me, too," he lied. "Guess the magic serum protecting me from your charms wore off." House grips her rounded ass, edging a thumb under the lace, and pulling her panties down over her hips for better access.

He feels fingertips caress the shape of his erection as she asks, "How do you feel about your pants?"

"At the moment, ill disposed." He wondered as he replied if his eyes were rolling back into his head like a shark in the throes of a feeding frenzy. Her hands fumble with his belt and the button fly of his jeans, and then he felt her ease the pants down over his hardness, and gently past the necrotic tissue of his right leg.

Her tummy flipped at the sight of his cock packaged in his blue boxer briefs as she mentally reviewed the times she'd imagined seeing all of him, and having him inside her – too many to absorb at present. She wanted skin on skin and, oh, there he was in just his socks, he'd rid himself of the boxers and his cock jutted out, a formidable presence.

Her panties were wet.

Everything about House, all of his limbs and muscles, tendons and bones were beautiful to Cameron. But she returns to look into his eyes because that was where she'd learned to love him, want him. The naked blues were as potent as his stiff prick.

House rolls over on his side, lightly stroking her curves from hip to ribcage, and stares at her naked body, supine, skin satiny, swell of breasts peaked with dusky nipples, legs slightly parted, sex hidden beneath tiny brunette curls. He wanted to see her hands down there moving her lips aside to he could view the place he aimed for – and yet his eyes flicked back to her face, the sculpted beauty of her cheekbones and _her_ eyes – both innocence and experience shone within – the open invitation that was her mouth, and the unkempt allure of that nut-colored hair.

He sucked in his lower lip and puffed it out again. "I'd say something, but I know how you hate it when I give you credit for being merely beautiful."

Cursing guitar giant Peter Frampton, House was attacked by the lyrics to the shaggy haired singer's, _I'm in you; you're in me_, but he kept his mouth shut and pulled Cameron hard up against his own nakedness.

Cameron nearly passed out, pressed against six foot two inches of House, and that wasn't even counting his erection. Hidden was the House whose long-standing date was with daytime television, the House who regarded breasts as "fun bags" and whose allegiance was to Monster trucks. This was a House who kissed back, who seemed to have memorized her shape and intuited her taste for loving without ever having touched her before.

As much as he took, he gave back more. His love paid dividends, she thought, moaning as he pushed her legs apart with his left knee, suddenly impatient. House gently touched between her legs, circling her clit and vulva with his fingers flattened, all the while watching her expression, before slowing his movement and – there, right there, like that – her flesh gave way before him, moved against him, and then it was the head of his hard-on nuzzling her folds, up against the wetness that led deep inside her.

As he entered Cameron, slowly filling her with the length of him, she felt stabbed by sweetness and her whole body tingled. She rose to meet him, posting against his pelvis, pressing her breasts against him to heighten the sensation that warmed her clit. _Maybe there was a God after all._

House was where he had wanted to be since the first time he'd seen her and claimed her as his own personal work of art. She was everything, she was on him, and he was in her, buried deep in sheer Cameron heat. He rotated his cock within her, angling in and around, shifting when her moans became a descant. Her hands grasped his hair, then restlessly, she ran his fingertips across his spine and clutched the dip of his back, finding the hard shape of his buttocks and squeezing.

He had to go deeper, faster, and as he thrust long and hard into liquid heat, she touched the place where they connected, her small hand needing to feel where they joined together.

"House. Look," she says, "at us."

A hard cock, halfway buried in the dark wildness that framed Cameron's entrance is what House sees when he obeys Cameron and looks down at where the two of them meet.

_United._

And then he finds her eyes as he gives one more thrust, brushing his head against her spot while skimming her clit with his thumb. Cameron cries out beneath him, and he feels her walls spasm around his cock as she comes, her body shuddering, her mouth moving beneath his. A surge of wet heat floods his erection as his excitement builds and exquisite pleasure pulses up from the base of his prick to the head, exploding as he shoots into her, whispering her name in her ear.

It wasn't a quick fuck on the floor of a chapel, but it wasn't a ballet, either. It was their first time. It was sacrilege and it was sacred, but mostly it was salvation. The only witnesses were the blue and green stained saints and Christ himself, his mom, and his 12 chums. A motley crew, no doubt, but blessedly silent.

They lay tangled together. House squeezed his eyes shut, afraid he'd weep out of sheer relief at the contact – _finally, this_ – or that his heart would stop: this was as good a time as any.

Might have been the location, it was a chapel, after all, or it may have been that his proximity to Cameron put him in mind of the profane _and_ the sacred, but words to a distant hymn from his childhood seemed right for the up close and personal that was their first time:

_There let the way appear, steps unto heaven; _

_All that thou sendest me, in mercy given; _

_Angels to beckon me _

_Nearer, my God, to thee; _

_Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee._

It worked, he thought, if you just replaced "God" with "Cameron."

Cameron intuited deep emotion emanating from House, and decided to keep her tone on the light side, although she found she couldn't stop touching him – the pectoral muscles beneath her hands were hard, and she had to trace between each rib. Slipping a hand between their bellies where sweat pooled, she pulled it out again, and reached up to touch his face.

_From now on, for her, the chapel would be a holy place. _

"Am I, is this, just another distraction?" She asked it with her lips at his ear, nibbling its lobe, swiping tongue ever-so-lightly inside its shell.

House exhaled, finally opening his eyes to regard his Cameron.

"Only if you count the fact that you've driven me to distraction since the moment we met," he answered, his breath ragged. Then he admitted, "Everything is a distraction from the pain, but I wouldn't place you in the same league as soaps, Nintendo, and pay-per-fucks."

"You're a romantic," she laughed, hugging him, and he kissed her hard and deep in response.

"You on anything?" House asked, sounding more curious than concerned. "Forgot about condoms. Just like high school."

"I hate condoms." The vehemence in Cameron's voice surprised House. "I think everyone should use them. But, I think they should call them condemns, as in, you're condemned to have sex with a sock. Yes, I'm covered in the birth control department."

Although Cameron told the truth about the first part, she edited the second part. She did have a prescription for birth control pills, and she usually took them faithfully. But, she'd missed a few days with all of the Ezra Powell stuff going on.

Still, she was pretty sure she wasn't ovulating.

Pretty sure.

* * *

**A/N: Reviews and favorite passages are always appreciated. Thanks for reading. _Blueheronz_**


	4. I once was Lost but now I'm Found

**Disclaimer: **Tisn't mine.

**Betas: **ColorOfAngels, who has a way with a document :)

**Dedication: **To Katej, for "all the etc."

* * *

The boy was barely sixteen from a glance and already his face was pitted like a minefield from the acne. The glasses he wore contained lenses thicker than a Minneapolis ice pond, and to cap it off, green matter stuck to his braces like sea kelp.

House shuddered.

It was AIDS Awareness Day at the PPTH Free Clinic otherwise known as the day where hapless teens and Princeton students, along with a few of the wiser women of the night, came for condom contraband. Cuddy had House and Wilson testing for the immune disorder and handing out the means of protection. Well, Wilson had volunteered, and House had been cajoled into it only after he was promised a two-week respite from all clinic duty following said service. He'd tried at first to get Cuddy to enlist his team, but wielding a sports metaphor like a baseball bat, Cuddy said that for once House was going to step up to the plate and allow his exhausted minions to sit this one out. While House shelled out rubbers to dweebs who resembled the nerds from "Napoleon Dynamite," Wilson worked as closely as possible with a pretty new nurse who had eyes like a doe, as she drew blood and labeled vials.

Looking away from the blotched face of the teenager with an eye roll, House scanned the crowd hoping Cameron might show up out of a sense of charity or solidarity. He wanted to see her in her white lab coat and reading glasses as she studied charts, and to watch as teenaged boys toppled like dominoes when confronted with her beauty and sex appeal. And then, while they gawked, he wanted to part the sea of awkward adolescents and push his way through to her side. He would grab Cameron by the waist, hoist her up on Nurse Brenda's desk, and take her. Show them how it's done.

_Show them she was his._

(Of course they'd use a condom. This _was_ about safe sex, after all.)

He had been dating Cameron for a month since their communion in the PPTH chapel. That same night they'd returned to Spiletto's for dinner, Cameron in her red dress, the one that made him slack jawed. Regarding her in it, he addressed their waiter. "Bring me a bib," he'd said. "Don't want to drool on my favorite shirt." This had earned him a laugh from Cameron, who had covered her mouth with her hand at his remark, her eyes shining. Instead of a corsage, he'd bought her a Norfolk Island pine tree in a pot with mini-candy canes decorating it. It had made her smile into his eyes, and in spite of himself, House had felt his mouth curve up. The talk had begun with awkward comments about each other's appearance. Drinking her in, House had raised his wristwatch to his mouth and spoke into it: "Code name, Aphrodite," he'd deadpanned in an English accent, a feeble attempt at James Bond, a feeble attempt at a compliment. Cameron held his eyes captive, brushed his hand with her fingers, and leaning towards him in her chair, said very softly, "You have no idea how badly I want to take off your tie and unbutton your …"

Just then the waiter appeared with single malt for House and a cognac for Cameron. Once they'd ordered, the conversation circled to which celebrities Cameron found attractive. Of course, he had never made a secret of his admiration for Carmen Electra, Angelina Jolie, and Scarlet Johansson. Turned out that Cameron was a bit of an oddball in that she liked Edward Norton far better than Brad Pitt, and was torn between Harrison Ford or Humphrey Bogart as the most appealing Linus Larrabee in the two versions of "Sabrina."

"Always thought that if I ever had a son, I'd name him after Bogie," House found himself saying out loud. The words reverberated throughout the eatery, and he imagined all of the other dinners swiveling to look at him.

_Why don't you just get naked and let it _all_ hang out? _He'd thought irritably.

That was date number one.

And as it turned out, he'd been right about her. Although she hated tired sports metaphors, Cameron loved sports. Unfortunately, tennis was her favorite, with golf a close second.

"If the Undertaker looked like Roger Federer, I'd be into wrestling, too," she'd explained with a sly smile on another date as they sat together on his leather couch watching TV. She'd grabbed his remote and switched from WWF to Wimbledon.

His hand had absently caressed the smooth skin of her thigh, but as his eyes glazed over from watching the tennis ball fly from racket to racket, his interest in her legs and what lay between them intensified and his fingers inched up to the seam of her spandex yoga shorts massaging her clit through the cloth. As he moved the material aside and stroked her sweetspot, House found that despite the younger man's considerable appeal, he still held the advantage over Federer. The tennis match had soon become merely background noise accompanied by Cameron's moans and, yes, he admitted it, his shouts, as clothes fell to the floor. Kissing her, being inside her seemed like an endless exploration. It was _never_ boring. And any date that began with sports and ended in sex scored highly in his book.

But, he noted, returning to the cruel reality of clinic duty, it had been three days since he had been with her, since he'd last nailed her. And yeah, he was going to have to rethink the way he referred to their sex and make it a little less crass now that they were dating. But House was in a foul mood. He needed her. _Leg hurts. Want Cameron. Pop Vicodin. Leg not so bad. Still want Cameron._

"You're not getting any." House stared down acne-face until the pockmarked teen had the good sense to look away.

"But … they said there'd be free condoms," the lad squeaked in a voice that hadn't quite managed to change. He had taken House's words literally, thinking he wouldn't score the condoms. His brain creaked as House handed him the box of prophylactics.

"You can have the condoms. But, dude, I mean, mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the gnarliest of them all? Like I said, YOU'RE NOT GETTING ANY. Next?"

Wilson winced at the exchange between House and the recipients of PPTH's free services. "You're … enjoying this." Coming from Wilson, this was an accusation.

"This is fun. It's not like he's a real patient. He's just riff raff," House replied. Raising his voice for the benefit of the crowd, he said, "Make sure to stay for the cake walk!"

To make up for House's abuse, Wilson smiled at pretty nurse what's-her-name while speaking to the boy. Extending an olive branch, he said, "You should have seen _me_ when I was your age." He shuddered dramatically.

The boy scowled and turned back to House as the nurse smiled at Wilson, fawningly.

Clearing his throat, pimples said, "I, uh, I want to, you know, to do it with my, uh, with Penny. But I think there's something wrong with my, uh, butt. Can you take a look?"

Despite the fact that there was a line of similarly pathetic teenaged boys behind him, the boy made as if to unzip his khakis and House cringed.

"Rather not. You've got pimples on your ass."

The youngster blinked. Once. Twice. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," House replied, staring at the angry marks on the kid's face. "You, however, won't be getting _lucky_ any time soon." House yanked the box of condoms from his hand. "Won't be needing these."

"But Penny and I …"

"You're _butt_ ugly." Holding the cap of his pen between his teeth, House scribbled on his prescription pad. "This'll do the trick. Come back when it clears up. I'll save you one." He waved a rubber at the teenager as Cuddy approached sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. "Check it out," House put his arm round the boy's thin shoulder conspiratorially and pointed at her with his cane. "Her whole ass is a blemish."

"House. We need to talk." Arms folded across her chest so her breasts bulged, Cuddy took a step back as House pushed the boy forward.

"Rack's not bad. Can you tell she's an exhibitionist? Pimply ass, this is my boss, Cuddy. Name sounds like a euphemism for vagina."

"You, go play a video game," Cuddy said, sending the boy on his way. To House, "You, come with me."

"You're so predictable. 'House, we need to talk. Now.'" Pitch perfect, House mimicked her. "You need to work on your repertoire. I try to stay fresh, but you're like a loaf of Wonder bread that's been on the shelf so long that you can't even scrunch it up into little balls, it's so stiff."

"It's about Cameron." Cuddy led House into an empty examining room.

He had to hand it to Cuddy. She had it in her power to shut him up and capture his attention with only three words. Well, truth be told, with just one. _Cameron._

"What have you been doing to her??" Hands on hips, hips encased in tight tweed skirt, lipstick a little too fuchsia for his taste.

_What haven't I been doing to her, with her? _Images, tawdry and tender flickered across the movie screen of House's mind as he looked past Cuddy, fingering his chin.

"House. Focus." Tap, tap, tap, the heels of her Blahniks attacked the floor. Like he hadn't heard that a score of times before.

"The question is why are you asking? " House said this more to himself than to Cuddy.

If she knew about the two of them, so be it. For once it wasn't his idea to keep something a secret. Cameron had asked that they keep it on the down low at least while at the hospital, but House didn't care who knew. Just like he'd always suspected, Cameron was_ complicated. _Like him. As his heart clenched within his chest, he was pretty sure he … really, really liked her.

_Couldn't get enough of her. _

Never thought he could be so lost and so found within another human being the way he was lost and found in Cameron.

"Have you taken a close look at her lately?" Cuddy asked, her face a caricature.

_You have no idea how close. _

"She still qualifies as lobby art in my book, but that's not what you meant. No," he lied. "I try for equal opportunity ogling. Wouldn't want Chase or Foreman to get jealous."

"She's pale, and she's been puking in the Women's Room. Has she lost weight?" This said with gestures that only served to push her persistent cleavage even more to the forefront of her outfit.

_Had_ she lost weight? House loved everything about Cameron's body. A few pounds on either side of the scale made no difference to him. But, what if there was something wrong with her? If she was sick, or if someone ever hurt her he'd … House felt his blood pressure climb and his biceps flexed as he gripped his cane.

"Hey. Just because your ass could go mano a mano with JLo's is no reason to criticize Cameron's bodacious bod. And as for the puking, you'd vomit too if your patient's eye popped out of its socket. That's why you're an administrator and Cameron works for me."

"You're an ass. I'm concerned about her. Have you talked to her today?"

He hadn't.

Last time he'd seen her was Friday night when she'd shown up at his door, bound his mouth with a hobo hanky, and threw him down on the Oriental carpet. All of this without a word. She tied his wrists with a ribbon so he couldn't touch her and performed a strip tease in slow- mo while his erection grew to mythical proportions. After removing his clothes, she'd pulled a red silk scarf from behind her ear like a magician running it over his hard nipples and abdomen and finally over and around his cock. _Jesus, what a mind-blowing sensation._ Her mouth followed where the material had been as she teased him first with her tongue, lapping at his head and right under where he was most sensitive, and then pulling him down deep. As his balls tingled and the base of his prick grew warm she pulled away and plunged him into her hot passage, leaning down so her hair brushed his face and tickled his chest. She rotated above him shifting the angle and slowing her rhythm, touching her breasts, cupping them as his heart sped, and following his pulse, she quickened her pace so she pounded down on him until he silently screamed her name and told her all the things he wanted to do to her. _Funny how when you couldn't talk, you suddenly had a lot to say, all of it hot as hell._ She'd made him come in three easy steps and Mt. Vesuvius had nothing on his orgasm.

After she untied him, House had kissed her for a while, and then he'd rubbed warm cinnamon oil into her feet with the patience of a saint, thumbs deep between the balls of her feet, stroking the arch and gliding over her ankles until he'd had no choice but to suck her toes inside his mouth, tasting the spices and sending sexual signals with his agile tongue. And then it was her turn, as he'd taken the slow road, making love to her like he was really _making love_ out of the two of them, their bodies joined where it counted, heart to heart, and other relevant parts connected perfectly, achingly good.

"You … know something. What is it?" House demanded of Cuddy, returning from his reverie, heart thumping. "This isn't a poker game. If it's about Cameron, I should know."

"You _should_ know. What I want to know is why you don't." Cuddy took a step closer to the doctor she privately thought of as a limping lawsuit.

House's hand went to his chin. He glanced down at Cuddy, waiting her out.

She let out an exaggerated breath. "She called me Sunday. Said she had to fly home to Chicago for a few days. She didn't want to deal with your adolescent crap, so she bypassed you and went to me. Says a lot about your leadership skills, House, that Cameron can't talk to you."

"Could; won't." Clutching his cane like the crutch that it was, House narrowed his eyes at Cuddy, wondering how he could have ever slept with her. Suddenly it seemed like blasphemy.

Humility wasn't his modus operandi, but he employed it now. "Did she say why?"

"She said it was personal," Cuddy answered, regarding House with something like sympathy.

If it was personal, he needed to be a part of it. Because what was between him and her was as personal as anything he had ever felt.

"Cover for me." House jerked his thumb at the line of people waiting for condoms and AIDS tests. Without waiting for an okay, he turned away from Cuddy and headed for the elevator, his gait speedy for a cripple.

"Why should I?" Cuddy's question, asked in a voice that implied caring, didn't slow him down.

"It's personal," he replied, stabbing the up button on the elevator with his cane.

"How long will you be, House?" Cuddy's raised voice reached him.

"As long as it takes." With this, House entered the lift.

As its doors began to close, Cuddy glimpsed a view of her prize diagnostician she was unaccustomed to witnessing. Brows furrowed, House looked worried, his face naked and vulnerable.

* * *

Wading in the waves of Lake Michigan at her family's summerhouse, dressed in a black bikini, Cameron reflected on her Friday night round of lovemaking with House.

He had entered her as if she was a sanctuary, and loved her deliberately, leisurely, with a sweetness that stabbed her with desire. Who knew he'd take his time when in so many respects he was impatience personified? Slipping a finger into her mouth to lubricate, he circled the nub of her clit his touch so light she could barely feel it at first. And then again with less diffidence. That, along with the way he moved within her, brushing seductively over her hot spot with his erection, then filling her with his entire length and largess, pushed her into the never-look-back-oh-Christ mode and she felt her orgasm start low down at her clit as warm spasms of sweet sensation spread from her vulva and moved out across her entire body like centrifugal force.

She touched her belly, as cool water sloshed against her thighs. A sweet ache lingered between her legs. He had been there, been inside, erasing other men and making her body utterly his own. He'd given her his body in return, and through the blue of those absolute eyes, a part of his spirit as well.

House was everywhere, even in this place she had treasured as a child. He was like the water. When she went under, slipping beneath the aqua surface, completely submerged and surrounded by this force of nature, that was as close as she could come to describing how it felt to be loved by House.

And now he grew inside her.

After lying to Cuddy, Cameron had caught a flight to Traverse City, Michigan, and rented a car, stopping only at a drug store for a pregnancy test before seeking the winding curves of M-22. As she sped past forests filled with poplars, birches, oaks and pine, and on past vineyards, rolling hills, and sprawling cherry orchards, she smiled, relaxed and in love with her surroundings. In love with life, with House. The two seemed to her synonymous.

Her destination was the Leelanau Peninsula where the family had spent a few weeks each summer since the year before she was born. It was a favorite spot for Chicagoans who longed for respite from their cold and windy city. The first year the family spent on the property, as her father and uncle built the modest house, baby Allison had slept in a drawer.

It was the place she wanted to be when she took her pregnancy test. Although she'd only thrown up a few times, Cameron was dead sure that she carried House's baby. Her spirit had, in the last weeks, soared like a seabird catching a lakeside breeze.

She supposed she should be worried about House's reaction. He had never shown the slightest inclination towards the young patients they'd treated. In fact, he often acted even less maturely than they had. And yet Cameron found she trusted him completely. It was as if the bond they shared was bigger than both of them.

Why wasn't she freaking out? That was her real question. She had always wanted to have a family someday, but when she'd married John, she knew it wouldn't be with him. And as he had weakened, and dying was just a matter of time, Cameron had felt her own spirit shrivel, and she wondered if she'd ever find the strength to love again; to marry; to have a normal life.

With House, she knew her life would never be normal. Both of them were peculiarly damaged. That was part of what connected them. And no one ever healed completely. The body could heal miraculously, but it never forgot an injury. The spirit was the same, she knew.

And what about her career? She was just starting out. With this fellowship with House, she could probably work just about anywhere. How would a baby fit in with her plans to leave Foreman in the dust where he belonged? She smiled at this. Didn't really mean it about her colleague. Wished she could be that hard hearted, but she never could manage it.

Mentally, she shrugged. Nothing, nothing could touch her happiness. All she knew was that if she and House had really bucked the odds and her birth control carelessness had ended in conception, well, so be it. It meant that House would always be with her, a new House without a limp or the hurt that Greg carried around with him. A House they made, the two of them, together.

The test had been positive.

And now Cameron swam in the waters of Good Harbor Bay, diving down with the playfulness of an eight-year-old, doing a handstand before rising to the surface again as a cocktail cruise boat from Leland churned across the horizon, leaving a wake as it passed.

As the sun grew mellow, Cameron stepped out of the water and grabbed a beach towel from a yellow Adirondack chair, rubbing her body and squeezing the lake from her hair. She walked up the cement steps that led from the beach to the cottage, and sat on the deck watching the hummingbird feeder for action.

The place was haunted and ghosts from her past swash buckled like the Pirates of the Caribbean except with less panache. There was her little sister, Mo – short for Maureen – who had died of Leukemia at the tender age of five. She could see her in her mind's eye, long hair streaming down her back, eyes gray and steadfast, skin sun-freckled and tiny hand clutching a red shovel as she dug in the wet sand. Cameron's older brother Charlie had helped the two of them make a sand sculpture in the shape of a mermaid, using flaxen beach grass for tresses, and green and blue beach glass for its tail.

Although Cameron's parents were alive, in great health, and living in Winnetka, her Uncle Cal, with his movie star cleft chin, sideburns, and cognac colored eyes was another cancer casuality. But she pictured him as he straddled the sawhorse, his axe blade biting into pine board. Along with her dad and Charlie, he had fashioned a small log cabin for the kids as a playhouse.

Thankfully, John had never made it to this spot, or he would have haunted it too. But, Cameron wasn't sad. Not now. The ghosts of the place brought happy memories. Yes, there had been funerals. But they had all taken place back in Illinois. This place would always be filled with life, and the memories animated, not static.

She heard the thrum of a hummingbird as it buzzed past her head to dip into the red sugar water she'd prepared and placed in the feeder. A pair of gulls made a lazy pass across the bay. Ferns sprouting up from the juniper covering the land waved at her in the breeze. Poplar leaves danced like silver dollars.

The ghosts faded and she stood, stretching. Pulling on a Mayo Clinic sweatshirt over the tiny scraps of black material that constituted her bikini, Cameron went inside the cottage and poured herself a glass of milk. Maybe she'd take a walk before driving into town for dinner.

Down on the beach, a pair of swans floated on the calm surface of the bay. There was something about long necked winged creatures, so elegant and proud, and they stuck to each other for life. The image brought tears to her eyes. It didn't take much these days to move her.

Cameron walked north toward a cluster of mossy rocks that jutted out of the bay, reminding her of the coast of Maine. She felt sorry for people who only associated the state of Michigan with office furniture, automobile manufacturing and breakfast cereal. There was so much wilderness and wild beauty to be found. Nature. She could just imagine House's reaction to the pine-tinged air and slap of waves. He'd make a face and shudder. Wouldn't he?

She had left House behind in Princeton, but he was stronger than any ghost. She saw him wherever she looked. He loomed in her mind's eye in various guises, as she recalled helping him loop the sling for his arm around his neck when he'd strained it, the look that had passed between them so knowing and intimate it had seemed deeper than sex. Thousands of similar images existed in her consciousness.

Since they'd made love in the chapel, she'd wanted House more than ever before. Instead of relieving their desire for each other, or demystifying it, the act had intensified it and made it into addiction. For the gourmand, one oyster was never enough. It was like that. One taste and they were off, and each time they'd coupled it felt new all over again, cliché, perhaps, she thought, but it felt like the very first time. House was, well, he was larger than life in many ways, but his erect cock always filled her to the hilt, slowly, and her body opened up and made room, though she was small.

Lately it had made work hell. It had made work heaven.

More than ever, Cameron was aware of the feeling of her clothes against her body. She had started wearing only the sheerest of fabrics, silks, chiffons, organzas, and even tulles – fine-spun materials that brushed against her skin seductively. She picked out trousers with snug inseams so she felt half aroused as she walked quickly keeping pace with House and the team as they headed toward a patient's room. Beneath her white lab coat she'd feel her nipples harden at the sound of his voice, barking out commands. "What are you waiting for? Get the MRI!"

More than ever, House paired Foreman and Chase on a case while sending her to the dark lab to try out their differential under the microscope. And as she watched the raw material of disease and bacteria come to life beneath the glass, House would come and stand next to her, their shoulders touching. Talk was minimal and they kept it professional. "Let me," House might say, and she'd scoot over on her stool so he could bend over and peer at the data. Voice so low as to be nearly inaudible, he might say, "I want ... to see you." In response, she'd undo a few buttons to reveal the hollow of her throat. House would look at it, and then stalk away leaning heavily on his cane.

This offered more room for anticipation for the moment when they'd meet at his place. And even there, they'd draw it out, taking down the copper pots and pans and making dinner, slowly eating, just their feet touching under the table, waiting, until side by side, they'd wash up, shoulders brushing, until desire became too much and one of them would fold. Sometimes it was House. He'd reach out as she dried a dish and catch her wrist in his strong hand. She'd look up, read his eyes, and lower the plate, as he'd turn into her, backing her up against the damp sink, running his wet sudsy hands over her bare arms, and their mouths would tangle together and that would be it. He literally stole her breath away and left her weak and gasping with sheer want.

Shaken with the thought of House's body on hers, _in her_, she turned back toward the house, pulled by a longing to call him, to hear his voice, to see his face.

His face. She loved to stroke it while he looked at her. Even after a month together, his eyes still held wonder.

_I own you_, she'd think, as he moved inside of her, when he finally lost control and let go, and she felt him spasm.

She thought about calling House. She wanted to tell him about the baby, but she also wanted the time to embrace and hold her newfound knowledge close to her heart. And she wanted to see if he would find her, come to her.

She'd left clues.

* * *

**Reviews are welcomed. Thanks for reading. _Blueheronz_**


	5. Confession

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Beta: **ColorOfAngels, who read this after pulling an all-nighter. That's how cool she is. Any errors are mine.

Thanks to Limaccia for some research and information on House's reaction to children, and to AThousandSmiles for being a great sounding board and good friend.

**For**: Kate J, on her birthday.

* * *

Cameron woke with a mild bout of nausea, a contradictory hunger, and a brief moment of disorientation. _Where am I? _Her eyes scanned the room until she spied the paisley curtains her mom had made.

_Oh, yeah_. Her family's summer place. Alone. Without House.

She heard the din of crickets, cicadas, and cantankerous crows overlapping the slap of waves hitting the shore as she slowly entered wakefulness. Usually it was the insistent beeping of her pager that hurtled her out of sleep.

Not today.

As she yawned and stretched her arms above her head, the crisp cotton sheet brushed against the tips of her breasts causing a sensation that hovered between pleasure and pain.

_So this is what it feels like, being pregnant._

If pleasure and pain were the components of her condition, then pregnancy was the perfect metaphor for her relationship with House. It seemed to her that the pain was in the past, and the pleasure was just beginning.

Her hand went to her abdomen.

Unbidden, an image of an alien fist bursting through her pregnant belly flashed through Cameron's mind, followed by memories of clone babies from The X-Files. And then there was Marilyn Manson. Charles Manson, too. The whole goddamn Manson family. She shuddered.

_Christ. What's wrong with me?_

_It's just the hormones, Allison_, she told herself.

If DNA molecules formed the blueprint for life, then what could she expect from her child? His child?

_Ours._

Despite his protests to the contrary, House wasn't God and she wasn't the Holy Virgin. Both of them were all too human. So, if it worked by osmosis, then the baby would be human by default. Wouldn't it?

As a first year med student, she'd briefly considered obstetrics. Worse than alien offspring by far were the medical textbook photographs of deformed fetuses. They haunted her too, and they were real, not science fiction. She took a couple of deep breaths, exhaling slowly.

_The baby will be fine_, she reassured herself. _Think like a mother to be, not like a medical scientist. No, a mad scientist out of a Mel Brooks movie_, she corrected herself with a smile.

Part of her was thankful that House wasn't on hand to witness her insanity. Would he even recognize this version of her, a person who entertained bizarre thoughts of other life forms emerging from her womb? A person who had flashbacks from watching _Rosemary's Baby?_ A doctor who allowed the possibility of birth defects to and fetal anomalies to shake her? Another part of her craved him the way addicts craved crack cocaine.

Thinking about House chased her worries away, replacing them with a keen sense of his absence. If House were here, she could put her crazy thoughts into words, and House would swat her fears away with jokes or his own peculiar logic. He'd use his body to distract her.

_His body._

It was warm and comforting and hard in all the right places. She liked to wake up with her limbs tangled in his, their feet touching.

Waking House with a kiss had become one of her greatest pleasures since they'd begun sleeping together.

Whenever Cameron spent the night at his place or when he crashed at her apartment, she made sure to wake up first because she loved to watch him sleep. With his eyes closed and his face relaxed, the pain that shadowed him faded. It was as if he'd never been damaged. Propped on an elbow, Cameron would lean over him, letting him sleep until she could stand it no longer and had to touch him. She kissed along his cheekbone, kissed the laugh grooves that framed his mouth and belied the misery people associated with him and, saving the best for last, she kissed his mouth until his lids flew up and his blue eyes regarded her. His eyes gave his feelings away before he became fully awake. They said, _is this for real? _And then House kissed her back.

His mouth on hers, their lips moving together, it was still so new to her that just the thought of it left Cameron breathless.

A crow squawked right outside the window of the bedroom. The clean smell of the lake came with the breeze from the screen door.

If House were sleeping next to her, she would roll over and kiss him awake.

And then she would tell him about the baby.

_Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy …_

Like that would fly with House, Cameron thought with a laugh. House already had a God complex and he didn't need any encouragement. In fact, when she told him the news, he'd probably make a crack about The Father Almighty. She could just hear it. House had a skewed sense of humor.

Maybe she could turn telling him about the baby into a satirical sci-fi soap opera scene.

"House. There's something you should know." Dramatically, she'd turn from him and face the window, looking out over the vast gray waters of Lake Michigan. Speaking to the horizon line, she'd say, "I stole some of your DNA, added a little of mine … and … we're having a human."

House would gasp, grip her shoulders, and turn her to face him. "But … I was really hoping for … a Vulcan."

"Maybe," she'd pause for effect, "if it's a boy, we could call him Spock."

There was no way to script telling House about the baby, Cameron concluded with a sigh. She would have to improvise.

Snuggling deeper into the comfort of her old double bed, she curled up, watching the driftwood mobile circling gently above her. She'd made it the summer she turned 13; the same summer she had gotten her period for the first time. Her mom had given her a hot water bottle and some aspirin for the cramps along with a brief talk about the responsibilities that accompanied the pleasures of "sexual intercourse."

Could a less inviting term be found for the act of love? Cameron wondered. "Intercourse" sounded vaguely like some rigorous military exercise involving an obstacle course and a senior officer yelling insults into your ear. At least her mom had used the adjective, "pleasure." It had given Cameron some hope that sex wasn't as scary as it sounded. The look in her mother's eyes as they'd drifted over to Cameron's dark-haired, handsome father who was calmly reading in the corner armchair, had made her think. Maybe sex wasn't so much a fright as it was a thrill, like a riding a roller coaster. You screamed and screamed, holding on for dear life, laughing maniacally, and then you went back, stood in line, and did it all over again.

_Sex. _

There were so many ways of doing it and so many terms to describe it.

Making love sounded poetic, as if love was a duet performed by two artists.

_Fucking_.

That term, oft considered crass, never failed to turn her on.

Coupling brought to mind two beautiful bodies entwined in dizzying poses like gymnasts.

All three worked when it came to her and House and what they did together.

_House_.

It had only been, she counted, two days since she'd seen House and yet his name had a physical impact. A pang in her belly spread downward as his face crowded all other thoughts from Cameron's consciousness. She kept remembering the way he'd looked up at her from between her legs after making her come with his mouth, tongue, and deft hands. It was hard to tell if the mild morning nausea was from her young pregnancy or from desire.

Her hand returned to her abdomen, still flat and toned from her daily runs and weight training. Lower, her clit throbbed.

Time to get up, she thought.

Under the showerhead, the stream of water stung her sensitive breasts. She washed between her legs remembering House's hands soaping her body.

The week before, she'd returned to her apartment from a long run to find House leaning against his motorcycle, waiting for her. One look in his eyes and Cameron knew what he'd come for.

What he wanted.

With a gentle yet deliberate touch, he scrubbed the sweat from her skin and pulled her back against his nakedness so she could feel the effect her wet nudity had on him. Hip leaning against the handrail, House's slippery, soapy hands cupped her breasts and made careful circles until the suds frothed and her nipples stood on end. She pressed herself harder against him with a little moan as he moved on to her stomach, caressing her abdomen with the palms of his hands. House directed his attention to her clit as his erection bumped against her ass.

"Jesus, House," she cried out.

"It's either him or me," he replied, turning her to face him.

He gripped her rump and took her up against the handrail, thrusting once, twice, before pulling her out of the shower and down onto the floor of her bedroom. Naked, dripping and lathered up, Cameron lay beneath him on the blue carpet as he found her again, easing back inside her slowly at first, his eyes always on hers, questioning.

_Like this?_

_Oh, yes_.

After she came, he dried her off with a big red towel. Hopping up on her bed, she crossed and uncrossed her legs staring at him as he stood, naked and wet, his erection still viable. Meeting his eyes, Cameron gave him a one word prompt.

"Again."

As a lover, she considered, House was precise. He could be passionate and energetic at turns and then slow, imaginative, and intentional about the way he loved her.

Sometimes he'd yank her legs apart and bury himself inside her with one long thrust as she'd urge him on _harder, faster, deeper_. To fuck her. So the next day, at work, she could feel that he had been there, inside her. Marked her as his personal property.

Other times he'd tease her with his cock, toy with her clit, and made her beg until she practically frothed at the mouth. He knew how to flirt with her where it counted, when to proceed, and when to hold back.

One thing was constant.

House was never indifferent to her body.

Stepping out of the steamy room, Cameron massaged light sesame body oil into her skin patting herself dry with a towel and shimmying into a kelly green tee that accentuated her curves and the indeterminate color of her eyes. Pairing the shirt with ecru shorts that showed off her long, toned legs, Cameron slipped her feet into a pair of Candies, noting that her French pedicure was wearing off.

Foregoing coffee – no more caffeine for her – she dunked a bag of decaf Earl Gray in a mug of hot water and plopped on a plate a lemon poppy seed scone she'd picked up at the Stone House bakery in Leland the night before.

She carried the refreshments out to the deck, placing them next to her old transistor radio on a small round table under a beach umbrella. Cameron went back inside for her book, a behemoth that had taken up an entire seat in her rental car.

The volume contained images taken by the Swedish medical and scientific photographer, Lennart Nilsson, who had published the first picture of a living human embryo. Originally, it had been featured on the cover of a 1965 issue of Life magazine.

The first time Cameron saw it she was a gawky science nerd leafing through her parents' collection of old magazines. The cover had stunned her. In it a fetus floated, anchored to its mother by the umbilical chord – but no, it was more than a fetus, she'd thought. It was clearly a living human baby. Unborn, perhaps, but certainly alive. Just 14, Cameron could hardly fathom the beauty and sanctity that was this … life. Already she had dismissed the notion of a Creator of the Universe. You didn't have to believe in God to possess a reverence for life.

That photograph had begun her fascination with medicine. Using the most powerful electron microscope in the world, Nilsson had photographed human fertilization. Sperm and ovum, hormones and chromosomes were magnified until they were beautiful abstractions that rivaled surrealism as a period in art history, she thought.

Slipping her reading glasses from the top of her head to her nose, she sat to look at the images while the morning sun warmed her limbs. The layered cut of her hair was growing back out to one length, the way House liked it best. True, it made her look younger, but he seemed to prefer her the way he had first met her. A young woman, who remembered his birthday, who never forgot to say thank-you, and who persisted in caring. House had told her about the night she came to his home to resign, how he'd longed to touch the nape of her neck and feel all that heavy brown hair, to lift it up and let it fall again. But he'd been paralyzed.

Traffic zoomed by on M-22, the road that ran along the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Shoreline, and she could discern the occasional cluster of bicyclists pedal past en route to Glen Arbor, but for the most part, it was quiet.

Cameron flipped through the pages of Nilsson's book. In the photos, estrogen became a crystal hit by a beam of sunlight creating a prism. A double-exposed dragonfly. Fireworks in every color spread out against a sky. Estrogen paled when compared to progesterone, which, in the picture looked like kite shaped kaleidoscopes. Chromosomes looked like fuzzy caterpillars. Sperm resembled the forefinger of an alien, elongated and top heavy, its blue tip filled with tiny gold nuggets. X and Y-chromosomes were a string of Christmas lights, bulbs green and glowing. Other photos brought sea coral and anemone to mind.

A motorcycle droned as it sped by on the county road, shattering the stillness. Another rider bent for Fishtown and a slab of fudge or some smoked chubs, she thought, closing the book and leaning back in her chair. A couple of Mergansers flew overhead, making for the water. A Monarch butterfly landed on her hand, and she admired its bold orange and black pattern. The roar of another motorcycle jarred the stillness. Its rider had the audacity to rev the engine and it slowed, pulling into the gravel driveway.

She stood, peering through the pines and poplars to the path that led up to the house. A Harley hog? She thought as the rider cut the engine. Not House's style. Not House's bike. Not House.

"Cameron!"

It was House.

The sound of his voice hit her in the gut. When she didn't immediately respond, he yelled out her name again.

If anyone in the cluster of cottages had been attempting a nap, they'd be awake now. House hollered her name at top decibel, like Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire," but without the desperation.

Her stomach fluttered. This was it. The moment of truth.

She walked down the path to meet him, trying to calm herself.

Had he ever looked so attractive and devilish? House leaned against the huge Harley wearing his Repsol jacket over a t-shirt, leather chaps over his jeans, and a pair of boots instead of the usual pair of sneakers. The ear buds from his iPod dangled around his neck. In one hand he held a helmet. In the other he gripped his cane. A bag of groceries and a duffle bag were strapped to the back of the bike.

"Nice Harley. Seems a little slow for you." She folded her arms across her chest and cocked her head at him.

"What it lacks in speed it makes up for in sex appeal."

He lowered his chin and raised his eyes to take in Cameron, slim and feminine in the shorts and tee that ended just above her navel. That little patch of naked skin was like a rash he had to itch. There was something about her belly that made him want to reach out and place his whole hand over it. _Mine._

"Last time I checked, you can't rent motorcycles." Her eyes roved over his scruffy face and then dipped to his throat. _I want to bite and kiss you. _

"Nope. But you can buy one." He sniffed the pine-tinged air suspiciously, and scanned the sky for antennas or Direct TV satellites. All he saw were the tops of the firs and aspens, and in the distance, the glittering water of Lake Michigan.

"You … bought a Harley just to come find me?" She wore the same perplexed look she gave him whenever he suggested draining all the blood from a patient's body and replacing it with the blood of a pig.

"I didn't buy a thing. Wilson, on the other hand? Well, he's always been a big spender."

Cameron gave him a look, like, _yeah, right_.

"I swiped his credit card and replaced it with a condom," House continued, pushing himself off the bike and fiddling with the ties on his luggage, such as it was. "Wish I could be there when he whips it out to pay for a new tie. Are you going to help me with the groceries? I am a cripple."

Cameron took the brown bag from his arms and grasped the handle of his tote. Leaning on his cane, he followed her to the kitchen with its rows of windows and clean light, watching her ass as she walked and resisting the urge to palm it.

Cameron set the bag down on the table and started removing items. "What's all this?" She unpacked a bag of Idaho potatoes, a loaf of bread, a package of chocolate chip cookies, a box of pasta, a couple of New York Strips, marshmallows, and a gallon of chocolate ice cream that dripped in the afternoon sun.

"Cuddy thinks you're too skinny. I brought you carbs. Atkins is a moron."

"Atkins is dead, and most women prefer the word 'slender.'"

"No TV?" House ignored her correction. "I didn't see any antennas."

"That a problem?" Cameron hoped he'd packed plenty of Vicodin, because along with the pain throbbing in his leg, he'd have to deal with withdrawal from the boob tube. It couldn't be a pretty sight.

"Depends on whether you prove to be enough of a distraction for me." A breeze blew up from the lake and House watched as her nipples stiffened, poking from the thin fabric of the tee. Once more he looked at her belly. He wanted to place his lips on her skin and blow into her naval.

"I guess we'll see. How did you find me?" Her hand went to her chin, and her mouth curved upwards.

"You lied to me," he blew off her question as she repacked the groceries and led him down to the kitchen. He leaned against the sink and stretched out his right leg, popping Vicodin and massaging it as pain from his long motorcycle ride caught up with the offending limb.

Cameron stared back at him. "I omitted information. I didn't lie." She exhaled as she admired his biking attire. House in leather chaps. Umm.

"Nope. You lied." House looked at her arms folded across her chest, then down the length of her legs. "You said you'd work the sex clinic. You … left me. Alone."

"Uh-huh. All by yourself … with Cuddy, Wilson, pretty nurse Janice and a bunch of horny teenagers to whom you showed no mercy. Am I close?"

"Janice? Hot brunette with fun bags that rival Cuddy's and eyes like a doe? That is so Wilson's next wife," House said, cracking a smile as Cameron laughed.

Soberly, he added, "Me, boss. You, minion. You left without telling me. Why?"

"I … needed to be alone. To think." God that sounded like a soap opera answer she thought, chagrined.

"You okay?"

"_I_ think I am."

Narrowing his eyes, he scrutinized her from crown to sole. "You look good."

She touched her hair, smiling. "Thanks."

He limped closer, moving her hair to the side and sniffing her neck. "You smell good." House set his helmet on the kitchen table and took her arm, turning it and kissing the inside of her wrist and along her forearm. All the while he held her gaze. "You taste good."

Cameron's lips parted and she touched his hand, looking up at his face. It was scruffier than usual and he looked tired. Had he flown into Traverse City, bought the Harley, and rode all the way here? Had he slept?

She grabbed the lapel of his jacket, pulling him close and swiping his mouth with hers, the briefest of kisses, and then she let him go. _Whew_.

"Hey. How did you find me?" Cameron repeated her inquiry while noting the beginnings of an erection form in the front of his jeans.

House watched idly while she put away the groceries. _He needed to buy her a pair of short shorts._

"The Mapquest directions you left on the pillow were ever so subtle. Now, the Petoskey stone you placed in my vial of Vicodin, that was a nice touch," House said, referring to clues Cameron had left him. The stone was known throughout Michigan. "But what it really boils down to is that your mother can't keep a secret."

"My mother doesn't know where I am." Cameron swung around to face him.

"No. But your dad does," House volleyed, raising his brows incrementally.

"My dad can keep a secret."

"I believe you. But when I told him that you'd been diagnosed with AIDS and might need a doctor, he caved."

"You told my dad I have AIDS?"

"A full-blown case. But once he spilled the beans and told me how to find you, I changed my story. Don't think I made a great first impression on your old man."

House left out the skeptical tone Cameron's father had adopted when he'd told the man that his daughter was immune compromised. "That's quite a whopper," her dad had opined, drawling out the words like a cowboy in a Western. "Allison tells me that you operate under the assumption that everybody lies, so forgive me if I'm not sold. But, you must want to see her pretty bad if you'd be willing to hurt her family just to do so. Then again, the last few times I've spoken to Allison, she's sounded happy. Just a shot in the dark, but my guess, Dr. House, is that you have something to do with that."

Cameron scoffed, bringing House back to the present. "You think?"

"What did you expect me to do? You'd rather I told him the truth?" House raised his voice out of habit.

"Which is?"

"You're doing the nasty with your boss? Just had to get away to … meditate on what a great fuck he is? You tell me," he ordered.

_You tell me. _

She planned on telling him, at the right moment. Post coital was sounding better and better, and not just because she thought House would be receptive after sex. As much as she'd tried to do so the last few years, Cameron could not remain unmoved by the sheer reality of House, especially when he was standing near her. At work while in close proximity, she had to jam her hands into the pockets of her lab coat to stop herself from touching him.

Then again, it seemed entirely possible that their sex would be better than ever once both of them knew what was at stake. House inside of her, the two of them conjoined, it was such a potent metaphor for the life that grew within her, that Cameron had to close her eyes.

She opened them again. And spoke without thinking.

"The thing is, you're going to be your father … I mean you're going to be a father, not your father." Cameron groaned inwardly. Improvisation was not her forte, it seemed. Thankfully, in an unprecedented turn of events, House hadn't properly processed the information.

He looked at her sideways, squinting. "Steve McQueen knocked up Ali McGraw?"

"You have another rat?" Cameron could not believe House's ability to sidetrack her. Around him, she had to fight to keep her focus. At work, this was possible. Not so in their personal life.

"Sure do, a little girl. Found her the day before yesterday at Wilson's. He's squeamish." House smiled at her. "One is the loneliest number and Steve needed company."

House stood with arms folded, leaning against the kitchen sink, regarding her appreciatively.

Wrinkling her brow, Cameron met his gaze. "House, I'm pregnant," she blurted. And once she opened her mouth, she couldn't stop talking. "We're having a baby. That is, if you want to, with me. It'll be great. You can give pointers on Nintendo and teach the kid how to juggle a cane. Even Mick Jagger has kids. And Angelina Jolie. Children _like_ you. They _get_ you. The autistic boy, our patient? He responded to you. Cancer girl? You let her hug you. You'll be a great father."

_Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?! _It was a biological impossibility, she realized, but if House were the one who was pregnant and he was trying to tell her, he would surely employ that one-liner from "Rush Hour."

Pregnant? There was a poetic justice to it, House thought. After all, he was the one who had pilfered Cameron's personnel file to find out if she'd ever had a baby. Did she do it on purpose? He dismissed that thought out of hand. She already had him. Gagging at the sentimentality of it, he admitted that, in fact, he was hers. Signed, sealed, and fucking delivered. In his mind's eye he saw her naked body, fresh from the shower, but instead of the toned tummy he loved, her belly was rounded, curved like the slope of a sand dune. The sight of it made his cock stir and all he wanted to do was to touch her swollen belly, to lie with her, his ear to her womb, his arms circling her. He wanted to make her come while she carried their child. He'd hold the head of his prick to her clit and move it up and down, dipping it in just enough to find her soft sensitive spot.

_A tiny piece of their love would become real in the form of a child_.

The concept was beyond anything he'd allowed himself to hope for, especially since the infarction and being abandoned by Stacy.

Cameron watched as House's eyes moved from her hopeful, worried face to the collection of stones and driftwood that she had arranged on a bureau. They made a pass at a patch of trillium growing among the juniper beyond the windowpane, took in the Frank Lloyd Wright knock off home to the north and then returned to her.

He spoke in a voice that seemed to her ponderous and thoughtful rather than upset and ballistic. "There's no 'dad' in pregnant but there is a 'parent.' In the singular. Of course, there's also 'near,' 'gnat,' 'tear,'" House hesitated. "And 'great.' Can't forget about 'great.'"

House pushed off the sink and took a deliberate step toward her. Reaching for Cameron's shoulders, House kneaded the muscles and tendons in her neck and upper arms. He seemed to look down at her from a towering height. A girl could get vertigo from keeping him in her line of sight, she thought as she tried to read his face. _No furrowed brows. That was good, wasn't it? _

She stood her ground, looking up at him with the same winsome expression she'd worn when she came to his place to offer to resign after his fuck up with Vogler.

Hers was a face he could never dismiss.

"So, you're not going to burst a blood vessel in your forehead?" she asked, tilting her head a little to the side like a tiny bird. "You're … okay with this?"

House put on his best head of the diagnostic department's voice. "I take it you've found a way to cover my clinic hours, make my coffee, and do my paperwork plus, you know, your job as an immunologist while also caring for my … for our …" House cleared his throat, covering his mouth with a fist and faking a coughing fit.

"Some people call them babies, but I take my cue from Mulder and Scully and refer to them as alien spawn," Cameron joked.

"And you want to … keep this … it," House at a loss for words. If only Wilson could see it, Cameron thought.

"I need to see a gynecologist, obviously. But yes, I want to keep the baby."

"And you want to do this thing … with _me_? You know, Foreman thinks I'm an ass," he added, sotto voce, giving her grief. "And Wilson might make a better dad."

"Sure. Wilson. Mr. Monogamy. That's what I want for the baby. An adulterous role model like Wilson."

"So what do you want … from me?"

_So little, really, in the scheme of things_, she thought. "I want you to be … with me. I want you to be a part of us. Both of us. Can you? Do that?" Her eyes scanned his.

"You drive a hard bargain. First it's a date – dinner – before you'll come back to work for me. Now you're saying that the only way I get to keep having sex with you is to raise this zygote." He returned her gaze.

"I think it's an embryo and, you said it, not me." _Like she would ever ban him from her body. _

The emotion of the moment overcame Cameron and she started to cry, covering her mouth with her small hands, while her eyes lit up with something like happiness. She turned to look out the window, buying herself some time.

House puffed up his cheeks and blew out the air. "This is the part where I'm supposed to go all Jerry Maguire on you and tell you that you complete me. Not going to happen in my lifetime. But …"

His face softened perceptibly as he watched tears of emotion drip down Cameron's face. _Cameron and her feelings_, he thought irritably as if he didn't have feelings, too. Then again, when she cried, it made him want to tuck her small frame inside his leather coat and press her to his body.

Yanking the tiny ear buds from where they dangled around his neck, House placed them in her ears.

While searching for a song on his iPod, House said, "You want to know what you can expect from me."

He fiddled with the tiny device.

"You can expect chronic pain, because it's what I live with. Those sports metaphors? They're not going anywhere. Just thought you should know. I think we've already covered the part about lying. It's going to happen." House placed a finger on his chin before continuing. "I said I wouldn't crush you. Meant it. When it comes to naming little … so and so, I get to consult the Magic Eight Ball. Chase doesn't get to baby-sit because he kisses little girls and that's just … yucky. Now shut up," House told her, although she hadn't said a thing, "and listen."

He pressed play.

The beautiful, clear voice of Chrissie Hynde singing "I'll Stand By You" swept over Cameron and she shivered as bits and pieces of the lyrics told her all of the things House couldn't bring himself to say.

_Nothing you confess could make me love you less_

_I'll stand by you. _

House pulled her back and fitted her body against his, wrapping his arms around her midriff. He pushed the material of her tee out of the way and placed his palm over her abdomen. She felt the heat of his breath against her ear as he said, "You're mine."

Plural.

_Cameron and the baby_.

* * *

**A/N**: Reviews and concrit are appreciated. Would you like to see this continue? 


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